When a thyroid test went wrong, half the patients got wrong care
More than 150 published patients had a thyroid result thrown off by one of six known interferences, biotin among them. At least half were misdiagnosed or mismanaged.
What the study found
Half of thyroid test interferences of any type ended in wrong care
More than 150 published patients had a thyroid result thrown off by one of six known interferences, of which biotin is one. At least half were misdiagnosed or mismanaged: treated unnecessarily, taken off a treatment they needed, or investigated further for nothing.
The caveat · Six causes pooled, not biotin alone
This is the figure for all six interference types together, and the review does not break it down by cause, so it is not a biotin rate. The 150 patients come from published case reports, which select for cases that went wrong; how many people had an interference and came to no harm is unknowable from this design. It is not a probability that any given biotin user will be misdiagnosed.
What we don't know
This is the figure for all six interference types together, and the review does not break it down by cause, so it is not a biotin rate. The 150 patients come from published case reports, which select for cases that went wrong; how many people had an interference and came to no harm is unknowable from this design. It is not a probability that any given biotin user will be misdiagnosed.